Inō Tadataka (1745−1818) was a famous surveyor and cartographer of the Edo period in Japan. He is known for completing the first map of Japan based on actual measurements, which he himself made by traveling throughout the country. In 1800 Inō surveyed the area from Edo (present-day Tokyo) to Nemuro (in present-day Hokkaidō) on the Ōshū Highway. He continued measuring other parts of eastern Japan until 1803. He compiled the results of his surveys into three sets of maps of different scales, which he presented to the shogunate in ...

John Cary (circa 1754−1835) was a leading London engraver, map-, chart- and print-seller, and globe maker, active between 1787 and 1834. This map of 1804 shows the Arabian Peninsula and neighboring parts of Africa and the Middle East. Important caravan routes are marked, including the “route of the grand caravan of Sudan from the Niger to Cairo,” “route of the caravan from Batsora [Basra] to Aleppo,” “caravan of Darfowar [Darfur] to Mecca by Dongola,” “caravan of Sudan directly to Mecca by Suakem,” and several other caravan routes to Mecca ...

Atlas Regni Hungariae Portatilis: Neue und vollständige Darstellung des Königreichs Ungarn (Portable atlas of the Hungarian kingdom: new and complete representation of the Kingdom of Hungary) is the first pocket-sized atlas of the Kingdom of Hungary. Its creator was a Slovak, Ján Matej Korabinský, who was born in Prešov in 1740 and died in Bratislava in 1811. Korabinský was a professor at several academic institutions, who taught theology, philosophy, and mathematics. The atlas contains copperplate maps of 58 counties, including those that constitute part of present-day Slovakia. All maps also ...

Along with new artwork, a new and less formal style of poetry called haikai (linked verse) spread among the urbanites of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo in 17th-century Japan. Haikai was also very much a social activity, with linked-verse parties held on regular occasions in homes or at restaurants. Such poetic gatherings helped give rise to privately commissioned woodblock prints, called surimono (printed matter), which paired images with representative verses from the circle. Both were typically intended to carry the cachet of “insider knowledge” for a cultured and well-educated audience. Because ...

A new and less formal style of poetry called haikai (linked verse) spread among the urbanites of Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo in 17th-century Japan. Haikai was also very much a social activity, with linked-verse parties held on regular occasions in homes or at restaurants. Such poetic gatherings helped give rise to privately commissioned woodblock prints, called surimono (printed matter), which paired images with representative verses from the circle. Both were typically intended to carry the cachet of “insider knowledge” for a cultured and well-educated audience. Because such surimono were not ...

The term ukiyo-e, literally “pictures of the floating world,” refers to a genre of Japanese artwork that flourished in the Edo period (1600–1868). As the phrase “floating world” suggests, with its roots in the ephemeral worldview of Buddhism, ukiyo-e captured the fleeting dynamics of contemporary urban life. While being accessible and catering to “common” tastes, the artistic and technical details of these prints show remarkable sophistication, their subjects ranging from portraits of courtesans and actors to classical literature. Kitagawa Utamaro was a highly influential ukiyo-e artist, known in Japan ...

This map shows villages in the province of Musashi that later grew together to form the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Edo Castle, built in 1457, is placed in the center of the map, which includes shrines, village names, and a tameike (reservoir) constructed in 1606, which dried up around 1877. A brief historical background on the establishment of the city is provided in red letters on the lower left. The title of the map implies that it was modeled on a map from the Chōroku period (1457–59), made ...